Nov. 30 - Dec. 6, 2017 Up Front News Opinion Culture Shot in the Triad Puzzles
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OPINION
EDITORIAL
Net neutrality: A First Amendment issue
We can pick our poisons with the Trump administration: the State Department disaster, the fantastical math of the GOP tax plan, the sealed indictments in the Russia investigation… but if we don’t keep our eyes on net neutrality, the internet — the United States’ most significant contribution to the world since we invented jazz — could be forever changed. FCC chair, Ajit Pai, has indicated the country’s position on net neutrality will change, probably during the holiday news dump, when no one will be paying attention. This is not a change in the law; the fate of the American internet will be decided by a vote of the five-member Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 14. On its face, the notion that all content on the internet be treated equally — the premise of net neutrality — seems a most American position. We don’t prioritize content in this country when it comes to the First Amendment. And a repeal of net neutrality would feed the worst impulses of service providers, who would be able to implement new fees on both the consumer and content-creator sides of their business model. We can take examples of this abhorrence in countries that don’t benefit from net neutrality. In Portugal, ISPs charge extra monthly fees to use social media, email, streaming services and even text messages. Before Canada made a strong commitment to net neutrality this year, ISPs were accused of throttling bandwidth for some competing services and, in one case, censoring a website that criticized the company. A case can be made that net neutrality might not disturb the digital status quo in the US — the bigger players like Google and Facebook have already created scaled-down internets of their own, content delivery networks that, in a manner of speaking, already bypass most internet traffic. And in most consumers’ minds, ISPs are going to suck no matter what. But erosion of these Obama-era rules makes two significant declarations. For one, to delineate the very internet upon which so many families, businesses and institutions depend as anything other than a utility is disingenuous. In 2017, a high-speed internet connection is as essential to life as electricity, too important to trust to the whims of a corporation intent on increasing its share price. For another, it opens the door for moneyed interests to drown out smaller players on the digital landscape — Triad City Beat included.
CITIZEN GREEN
I sing the body Electro, 1947-1997
An obituary doesn’t always “He kicked cancer’s ass,” a friend, Jaime Coggins, noted. capture a life. “He was getting his strength back and a sneaky little blood The one for Harry Wilton Perclot took him down.” kins Jr., better known as “Electro,” Old friends embraced after seeing each other for the is sparing in its details. The date first time in years. They admired photos, including one that and place of his death: Nov. 19 at showed Electro’s fingers bending the strings of his guitar Duke Regional Hospital. His date under a wash of garish lighting. by Jordan Green of birth: Sept. 5, 1947. His parents’ “You can see the eighth notes!” Kirkman enthused. names: Harry Wilton and Hazel Mettie Reese Perkins. His Jim McHugh, a member of Electro’s band the Circuit military service: US Air Force. Survivors: Half-sister Ann Breakers, describes him as well as anyone in an essay Tom and close friend Donny Harris. Mention of a sister, posted with the photos as “friendly legend of my youth — Carolyn Messinger, who preceded him in death. The most and everyone’s. Originator and keeper of the deep Greensimportant part of Electro’s official biography might be the boro Motherf***er Vibe, Electro’s spirit howled somewhere fact he was a musician. Oh, and the obituary notes that the inside me every time I put slide to strings for the past 15 deceased was a member of Roxboro Baptist Church, where years — and he was still kicking. So from here on out, when he was baptized on March 5, 1961. Age 13, if you’re doing I slide-on, I’ll feel his noisome ghost kicking my ass into that the math. higher gear at which he existed, and I’ll make a go at playIt’s the final detail that elicits audible ing with something that approaches his level laughter from Rex Kirkman, who came to of HUGE-BALLS-iness.” pay his respects at College Hill Sundries Electro transcended generations of musiElectro transcend- cians in Greensboro on Sunday afternoon. in Greensboro, hanging out and playing ed generations “I can’t imagine my life without Elecslide guitar with Bruce Piephoff in the early tro,” Kirkman said. ’70s, rooming down the hall from guitarist of musicians in He was 9 when he first met Electro, Sam Frazier in the midst of the creative apex Greensboro. a journeyman musician and raconteur of the Tate Street scene later in that decade, who partied with, made music with and and then teaching the blues to a new generacrashed on the couches of at least three tion of punks when his former peers had generations of Greensboro residents. professionalized their game and drifted from “He was somewhat of a fount of wisdom,” Kirkman said. the scene. “He was good at warning me about the obstacles. He Electro taught McHugh and his friends “open-tunings played dobro and blues guitar. I played harmonica with and slide guitar and the John Lennon barre chord.” He him.” played music in a way that makes today’s indie-rock bands Even that prosaic appraisal doesn’t quite capture Electro, seem careerist in comparison. He would gather up a crowd and Kirkman paused for a moment to reach for the more at the bar at closing time, and relocate to a friend’s place mystical dimensions of the man. with a fridge stocked full of beer. With Electro on slide Kirkman recollected the details about a time when he guitar, someone else might join in on the tambourine or was living in South Dakota and had gotten into a fight with spoons. Or plug in an electric guitar and amp on a friend’s his girlfriend. He was driving across the open country when front porch at 10 a.m., and crank it all the way up. he discovered the roadside was trashed with empty bottles McHugh’s description of a Circuit Breakers gig at Coland cans. Being someone who can’t stand litter, he decided lege Hill Sundries almost 20 years ago captures the bridge to clean up the mess. He turned on the radio, and couldn’t Electro built from old-school blues to avant-garde noise. believe his ears. It was the sound of Electro’s dobro and “Judging by my bewildered beer-swollen mug in the phoRich Lerner, another Greensboro musician, singing — two to here, we Circuit Breakers are nearing that confused and old friends transmitting over the airwaves from a radio stafurious 20-minute mark of ‘Gloria’ or ‘The Thrill is Gone’ or tion in Rapid City. Kirkman tossed the bottles and cans into “Funk 49’ or something like that, and right at this moment, the back of his pickup, before resuming his quest. s***’s probably sounding insane like redneck ‘Sister Ray’ or “Then I climbed up on a butte and talked to an eagle,” he accidental early Sonic Youth,” McHugh writes, “and Electro recalled. is trucking on with us, full on — as ever.” Dozens of Electro’s friends, fellow musicians, understudies and surrogate daughters who drove him to Walmart to get his medications and brought him food during the last year when he was battling cancer crowded into College Hill, sharing stories through laughter and mouthfuls of shepherd’s pie.